RCMP Const. Kwesi Millington, who shot the Taser before the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski, arrives at the Braidwood inquiry to give testimony Monday.Photo by
Jon Murray

RCMP Const. Kwesi Millington denied that he was “covering” himself despite repeated inaccuracies in his version of the Tasering of Robert Dziekanski and what a bystander video shows of the man’s death at the hands of RCMP.

Milliington, 32, a fit former personal trainer who was trained on Taser use just three months before using it five times on Dziekanski, acknowledged on the stand at the Braidwood inquiry Tuesday that his written reports and notes were full of inaccuracies.

But Millington, despite blistering cross-examination by Walter Kosteckyj, the lawyer for Dziekanski’s mother, in which he admitted “parts of my statements were incorrect,” said that he wouldn’t do anything differently if he had to repeat his actions on Oct. 14, 2007, the night Dziekanski died at the Vancouver airport after 34 hours of travel.

Millington said that he didn’t intend “for Mr. Dziekanski to pass away” but said he’d do it the same all over again.

Millington admitted he didn’t give Dziekanski the warning from police training for people about to be Tasered.

Asked what the warning should have been, Millington replied in an expressionless voice: “It’s ‘Police, stop, or you’ll be hit with 50,000 volts.’”

Drinking repeatedly from a glass of water on the witness stand, but staying composed, Millington couldn’t explain why he didn’t warn the traveller except to say, “I didn’t believe we had the time. I wanted to get to Mr. Dziekanski.”

Millington also couldn’t tell Kosteckyj why he, as the strongest and most fit Mountie, didn’t let a smaller officer use the Taser or help the other three armed officers to restrain Dziekanski calmly, without the use of weapons.

Millington agreed with Kosteckyj that “nobody was bleeding or injured and Mr. Dziekanski was in a secure area.”

The four RCMP officers, who were having lunch when the dispatch call from the airport came in, took less than a minute to “assess” Dziekanski before using the Taser, which knocked him to the floor on its first blast.

Kosteckyj pointed out that Millington claimed he’d cycled the Taser three times.

“That’s wrong, isn’t it?” demanded Kosteckyj.

Millington replied, “Yes.”

In fact, the Taser was deployed by Millington five times, for a combined total of 31 seconds, against Dziekanski.

Millington agreed that he was also “incorrect” in claiming justification for the second Taser jolt because “Mr. Dziekanski stayed on his feet until four members wrestled him to the ground.” He agreed the bystander video shot by Paul Pritchard clearly shows Dziekanski falling to the ground, screaming in pain, after the first crack of the Taser.

Meanwhile, the Braidwood inquiry into Dziekanski’s death and Taser use has attracted international attention, particularly from Poland. Marcin Wrona, a reporter from TVN Poland, is covering with a camera crew the police officers’ testimony this week and has interviewed Dziekanski’s mother, Zofia Cisowski, at length in her native Polish.

“We are the leading and biggest commercial network in Poland,” said Wrona, “and yes, there is enormous interest in this case at home.”

Polish consul Przemyslaw Jenke, who has attended almost every day of the last five weeks of the inquiry, said that the Polish government requested all the files on the case “before this inquiry started but now we have been asked to wait until this is all over.”

The B.C. Criminal Justice Branch decided Dec. 12 that the four officers wouldn’t face criminal charges, but each has his own lawyer at the inquiry and also could face civil litigation by Cisowski.

Jenke said he cannot speculate what the Polish government will do until it can obtain the original files on Dziekanski’s death.

“But I can say attending myself it is very disturbing to view the evidence given by the officers, with all the discrepancies betwen the various statements and notes they took afterwards and what we see on the video,” said Jenke.

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